Jadavpur University

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Jadavpur University

Motto To know is to grow
Established 1905
Type Public
Chancellor Governor of West Bengal
Vice-Chancellor Shyamal Kanti Sanyal
Faculty 850 (approx)
Undergraduates 5000 (approx)
Postgraduates 4000 (approx)
Location Calcutta, West Bengal, India
Campus Jadavpur (Urban; 58 acres) and Salt Lake (Suburban; 26 acres)
Website http://www.jadavpur.edu/

Jadavpur University (Bengali: যাদবপুর বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়) (JU) is a state-funded university and a premier educational and research institution in India. It is located in Kolkata, West Bengal and comprises two campuses - the main campus at Jadavpur and the new campus at Bidhan Nagar (Salt Lake). Jadavpur University is closely affiliated to leading research institutes like the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science and the Central Glass and Ceramics Research Institute.

Contents

[edit] History

Golden Jubilee logo of Jadavpur University
Golden Jubilee logo of Jadavpur University

The National Council of Education (NCE) was set up in 1906 to impart literary, scientific and technical education on a national basis. The year was significant in Bengal's history as the province had just been partitioned by Lord Curzon, the Governor-General of India, into East Bengal on the one hand (the area that was eventually to become Bangladesh in 1971) and West Bengal and Orissa on the other. This was an extremely unpopular move by the British and was ultimately reversed in 1911, but much damage had been done to Bengal's sensibilities in the meantime. In 1906, a group of Bengali intellectuals including Rabindranath Tagore, Aurobindo Ghosh, Raja Subodh Chandra Mullick and Brajendra Kishore Roychowdhury decided that they would protest the partition of Bengal by setting up an institution that would challenge British rule by offering education to the masses 'on national lines and under national control'. The NCE was set up with Rash Behari Ghosh as its first president.

Virtually at the same time, a rival organisation, the Society for Promotion of Technical Education in Bengal, was set up by Taraknath Palit,[1] and under it the Bengal Technical Institute came into being on 25 July 1906. The two organisations fought it out for a few years until the SPTE was amalgamated with the NCE in 1910 and the Bengal Technical Institute passed into its hands. In 1921 the Institute became the first in India to introduce Chemical Engineering as a discipline. By 1940, the institute was virtually functioning as an independent university, and after Indian Independence in 1947, the West Bengal State Legislature, with the concurrence of the Government of India, enacted the Jadavpur University Act, 1955 to convert the institute into Jadavpur University with full autonomy on (December 24, 1955). Since then the university has observed this date in its calendar as Convocation Day.

The emblem of Jadavpur University was designed by the Bengal Renaissance artist Nandalal Bose. As the university celebrated its Golden Jubilee on December 24, 2005, a special emblem (see above) was created to commemorate the occasion. This date was also the centenary of the National Council of Education.[2]

[edit] Organization

Aurobindo Bhavan - the administrative block on main campus
Aurobindo Bhavan - the administrative block on main campus

Jadavpur University is home to over 5000 undergraduate and over 4000 graduate students. It comprises three faculties:

  • Faculty of Engineering and Technology
  • Faculty of Science
  • Faculty Of Arts

It hosts 34 departments under these three faculties besides 16 interdisciplinary schools and 21 research centres. Admission to the Engineering faculty departments is on the basis of a Joint Entrance Examination (WB-JEE) conducted by Government of West Bengal that can be taken by all Indian nationals. Lateral admission through other entrance examinations have also started from 2005.

Each faculty is headed by a Dean, performing administrative and academic duties under principles formulated by the Faculty Councils, while the constituent departments are under the administrative control of respective Heads of the Departments, who function under the policies framed by the Boards of Studies. The Vice-Chancellor is the chief academic and administrative officer of the university, and is elected from amongst the professors for fixed terms. The Governor of the state of West Bengal is the ex-officio Chancellor of the University, and as such wields no administrative power. Each department offers under-graduate and/or post-graduate programmes, and undertakes research in their respective fields of study.

Four specialized institutes are affiliated to Jadavpur University -

  • Jadavpur Vidyapith College of Education - an affiliated high school
  • Institute of Business Management - an affiliated business school
  • Shrimati J. D. Birla Institute - an affiliated women's college
  • Marine Engineering and Research Institute - an independent affiliated research institute, entrance to which is through the prestigious IIT-JEE entrance examinations

[edit] Special areas of research and advanced studies

The ISIJU was India's first indigenously developed transistor-based computer
The ISIJU was India's first indigenously developed transistor-based computer

The University specialises in Oceanography, Electronics & Telecommunication, Computer Science & Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Electrical Engineering. It is also one of the only three institutions in eastern India which offers courses and undertakes research in Architecture and Planning. The university has a number of departments recognised by the University Grants Commission (UGC) as Centres for Advanced Study in their respective disciplines, notably English, Comparative Literature and Philosophy.

In collaboration with the Indian Statistical Institute, the university developed the ISIJU, India's first indigenously made transistor-driven computer, in 1966. This was at the frontier of the technology then available and in recognition the UGC sanctioned a computer centre at part of the electronics department, one of the earliest in the country. In 1988, this finally became an independent department.

The university has received several major grants in recent times to develop new areas and technologies such as cognitive science and mobile computing. Other areas of emphasis include nanotechnology, archives and records, media and communication, and history of the book.

The School of Cultural Texts and Records, started by Professor Sukanta Chaudhuri has been archiving the papers, memoirs and manuscripts of various noteworthy litterateurs such as Sudhindranath Datta, the editor of the early twentieth century periodical Parichaya, and Buddhadeb Bosu, a noted Bengali poet, and will be creating digital archives of many important cultural and historical documents. It is also building an archive of early recorded classical Hindustani music. The project is being undertaken by Professor Amlan Das Gupta

The university has one of the earliest (1989) schools of women's studies in an Indian university, which has recently introduced an M.Phil programme.

The university also houses the eastern regional centre of the National Afforestation and Eco-Development Board of India.

[edit] Recognition and endowments

Jadavpur University has been formally recognized as a leading university in the past decade by the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) which have evaluated the university to be in top bracket of accredited Indian educational institutions. The university was the first Indian university to be endowed with the million dollar grant from the Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund (SYLFF) under the Nippon Foundation, Japan in 2003 [3].

[edit] Notable past / present faculty

[edit] Distinguished alumni

  • Satyabrata Rai Chowdhuri - eminent political scientist and author, fellow of the University of London
  • Swadesh Chatterjee (Instrumentation Engineering) - President, IAFPE & Padma Bhushan awardee
  • Rituparno Ghosh (Economics) - Film director and National Award winner
  • Asoke K. Laha (Electronics & Telecommunications) - Founder and Vice-President, Interra IT
  • Bhaskar Chaudhuri (Pharmacy) - CEO, Dow Pharmaceutical Sciences, USA
  • Moon Moon Sen (Comparative Literature) - Actor in Bengali and Hindi films.
  • Nayan Chanda (History) - noted editor and journalist, recipient of the Shorenstein Award for Journalism

[edit] Campus life

The Jadavpur University lake or "Jheel", with the University guest house at one end
The Jadavpur University lake or "Jheel", with the University guest house at one end

Jadavpur University is one of the few universities in Kolkata to have two distinct walled off campuses, in Jadavpur and Bidhan Nagar. The Jadavpur campus is pressed for space, but is green with ponds, playing fields, and tree groves. It also has a windmill and limited residential space for staff and students.

Jadavpur University is a teaching institution and interaction between students and teachers is close and informal. Classes are comparatively small for an Indian university and contact hours are abundant. Recently the arts and science faculties were converted to the semester system of teaching (the engineering faculty was already following it) and with the demise of the old annual system a much greater flexibility in course design and subjects covered was possible.

The social life of Jadavpur University revolves around its canteens, common rooms and student clubs. The Photography Club, Mountaineering Club and the Quiz Club (Enquiry) are integral parts of JU culture. Jadavpur University is also host to one of the oldest college cultural festivals in Eastern India, "Sanskriti." The three back to back cultural festivals of the three faculties which take place in March, are unique among college cultural festivals for their showcasing of Bengali culture. The recently started Jadavpur University Open Quiz - Qriosity - is the largest University invitation quiz for schools and colleges in Kolkata.

The Jadavpur University canteens - Milanda's Canteen, Amenities Centre (AC) canteen, CET Canteen, Staff Canteen and Ashirbaad Canteen - have added to the Bengali gastronomy by the introduction of "Dhoper chop", a term which is used today both for an item of food, or to signify "bluff" or "blarney". The dish is in essence a sort of scotch egg --- except that it contains half an egg, the other half being made up of mashed potatoes, vegetables and bread crumbs.

The Salt Lake campus is smaller, and is host to the curtain-raiser (opening programme) of the university cultural festival Sanskriti. It is home to five of the engineering departments of the university and has a cricket field on campus maintained by the Cricket Association of Bengal on which Ranji Trophy matches are played during cricket season.

Student politics is an integral part of campus life in JU. Students are vocal about their rights, often leading to standoffs with authorities. In the science and engineering faculties, the students have political organizations unaffiliated with any major political party, We The Independents (WTI) and Democratic Students' Front (DSF) respectively, that run the student unions in the respective faculties. The Arts faculty students' union is presently run jointly by two warring forces, the Students Federation of India (which is the student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)) and Forum for Arts students, (which is an unaffiliated organization).

Jadavpur University also has a very distinctive lingo or campus-speak.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Haridas Mukherjee and Uma Mukherjee, The Origins of the National Education Movement (Calcutta: National Council of Education, 1992)
  2. ^ Ananda Lal, Rama Prasad De, and Amrita Sen, The Lamp in the Lotus: A History of Jadavpur University (Calcutta: Jadavpur University, 2005)
  3. ^ http://www.jadavpur.edu/sylff/press.htm

[edit] External links

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